


Darkened Shades

by TwilightsDawn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Hermione Granger, F/M, Good Tom Riddle, Tom is Voldemort but not the way you think, Young Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24059200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightsDawn/pseuds/TwilightsDawn
Summary: Hermione grows up in an orphanage unloved and determined to become great. She cares little for prophecies, especially about some chosen one that is destined to kill her. She is the master of her own destiny so she leaves nothing up to chance the Hollows prove this.Tom grows up with his alcoholic father and abusive grandparents. He doesn’t think he is anything until he is whisked away to a magical world. He doesn’t think much about being the chosen one. How can he be chosen for anything but suffering?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 39
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note* This was just for complete fun. People are sprinkled in and ages/time they would have been born are all completely off purposely as this is an AU.
> 
> So here we go. 
> 
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Tom grew up in a house that he was unloved, he was unwanted and despised by his religious freak grandparents. His mother gave birth to him and died. The marriage was a sham, a disgrace between his wealthy father and a common woman. He’s pretty sure that it was one-sided love. He was only taken in because his grandparents were ashamed of the implications that could be made if they didn’t. They can claim it was out of the goodness of their hearts all they want. He knows better. Boy does he ever...

His father because of the horrible marriage that he swears he was bewitched into, spends all the money that he is given on booze and out of the house, becoming more of a disgrace according to his Grandmother. She is convinced that he is out there slumming it up with other whores and one of these days he will knock one up just like Tom’s mother and then she’ll have two children to deal with. Tom almost wished that he would, because at least then he would have someone else to share his misery with. 

He for the longest time has been lonely...

Having someone come to the house to tell him that he is special feels like a joke. All his life he has made things happen and felt cursed for it. Punished for existing…. punished for being unnatural by god's light. It was little comfort the death threats being shouted at him not to give in to his darker nature and go to a school of witchcraft. 

He feels even more screwed over by life when he is told in no short of terms that a Dark Witch will probably try to kill him at some point because of a prophecy. So in preparation, he should go along with learning Magic and to fight her for when the inevitable time came and she would come to kill him. It was not much of a choice, learn to fight to live another day or die sitting in a mansion with people that pretend at best he doesn’t exist and at worse hit him with things. 

Dumbledore acted nice, but Tom was used to people lying to him, he can tell the way faces show different emotions, it's all in the eyes, and the twitch of the lips. He is not the savior that Dumbledore was hoping to train. He thinks there is something wrong with being able to talk to snakes, which are arguably the only company that Tom has had for a long time. At least snakes while being sneaky are readable and understandable. They are in it for the food, warm basking spot, and perhaps a safe place to sit for a while. Dumbledore is not like that. He wants Tom to be a fighter. He wants him to be brave, and carry the Wizarding World as a symbol. Tom knows that is not the only motive that the other has, but he can not be sure what else the old man wants from him. But if Tom promises to train, then he doesn’t have to go back to his grandparents, he would do anything not to go back. 

School was hard for him, not the learning, but getting along with people. He can’t trust anyone, it has to do with anyone hired that showed any like for him was forced to leave, with such turn over of people and no one to care about him, of course, he was going to turn out jagged. Like a messed up puzzle piece with a bent edge, he doesn’t fit the puzzle or the mold that he is supposed to. He tries, but all he has ever known is survival. It makes him fearful, watchful, and paranoid. 

Tom Riddle is not brave, he’s smart and that is all that he can rely on. He is a snake, among people that hate snakes. Morgana La Faye was once a Slytherin much like him. She rose to power by rallying those that had been oppressed, under the banner of equality for all blood status. When she learned, she could not defeat the powerful political powers by playing fair she had started acts of terrorism. She had become something dark and twisted. It got to the point where Albus Dumbledore had to face off against her, and even he fell to one of her many clever traps. She had stolen his wand for a trophy. So the Ministry, The Order, and anyone else that wanted to off her looked into other ways to defeat her, and that was when his prophecy was born. 

_The one to quell the Dark One is coming, born from the noble fallen house of Slytherin, and to nothing. He will forage a title all his own. He molded by hardship, with his wand hope shall be brought and paths lightened._

For the past 15 years, there has been a war that he has now been dragged fully into as he is close enough to being of age. He is supposed to bring hope. But how is he to bring hope to something that he doesn’t even want to be a part of? 

He was forced to train to end her organization…

There have been numerous attempts on his life. None of them directly from Morgana, but nearly dying on several occasions while straightening his will and want to live they do make him wonder when she will take a more direct approach and if he will even be able to live through it. 

The only reason that he is in it all is to survive because more than anything Tom wants to live. Why he is clinging so hard to it, he doesn’t know. There is very little that he is living for, and each day feels like the day before it. He is tired and just wants it all to end.

He keeps hoping that he will find something worth living for friends, a makeshift family, perhaps finding that he can care for the strangers that have a stake in all this. But years of pain have hardened him. He feels very little for the people around him suffering because they wish to just throw him at the cause and hope for the best. 

The order tells him of a raid that they have planned. Dumbledore asks him to be part of it and by asking, well he more of commanded him. And so Tom gears himself up for it. 

He tightens the braces around his wrists, he has pain from an old injury in his right one. He fixes the black shirt underneath his robe and tucks the very meaningful necklace under his shirt. It’s the only thing that he has of his mother, and even if it seems girly to some of his past roommates. Tom will not take it off. Its a luck charm. He feels it against his chest and fiddles a little with the golden chain. His fingers are shaking a little. He takes a few deep breaths caressing his wand with his left hand. The yew wood is nicely polished as it is the only other thing that he can say that he owns that is new and completely his. 

Abraxas looks over at him but he says nothing. The blond is probably the closest thing that Tom has to a friend besides well his snake. The adder is small enough to fit into tight places and smart enough to bite those that would be a threat to her. Abraxas doesn’t completely believe in the light cause. His family is just in for getting rid of someone that is so invested in taking out purebloods. There are a few members that have joined the Order with similar motives and mentality 

Tom is not very interested in Blood. He knows that he is a Halfblood but that's about it. He lets Victoria slither her way up his arm. She tightens her coils around him so that most of her is concealed by the robe. He can feel her tail caressing his shoulder and her head leaning against his cheek. 

~Be calm hatchling.~ She whispers to him, her voice soft and calm. Her tongue brushes his ear. He pets her along her thin spine.

~I can’t.~ He tells her. Because any time there is danger he can not help but feel like he is about to enter a very delicate dance. He can dual he has been trained for it. He knows how to shield, dip, and move. But he knows that all it takes is one miss-step, and the dance will end. One green spell and he like a few of the other order members will fall like puppets that have lost their strings. He has seen death enough to know that he doesn’t want to go like that. 

~Try~ She hisses softly. ~Try~ 

He takes another deep breath if only he could will himself. 

Abraxas moves close, bumps his shoulder purposely and Victoria hisses angrily at him, words that he doesn’t even know.

“It’s just a raid. We have faced worse.” He smiles lightly. “It will be fine. The spy told us that some of her artifacts are there, there will be limited guards and limited Outlier members. It is simply a quick way to destroy things and get out.” 

Tom knows this, but his gut is warning him. It is telling him that it seems too easy and he never trusted their spy. The man was very close to Muggles and he was not seemingly the brightest or most ambitious so he didn’t move up very far in the enemy ranks. It was hard to say if what he told them would be useful or true. 

“Right.” He nods putting on a fake smile that always hurts his face a little bit to use. “Let’s hope that Lestrange doesn’t get too carried away with her fire spells.”

“That's the spirit.” Abraxas grins back. “I keep forgetting that Walburga is no longer a Black.” 

Tom shakes his head. “Lots of people are getting married, in case The Dark One does fulfill her threats.” 

“Well, she can try to get rid of the old houses, but even with most of them gone, she still will not win legislation votes. Even with her sympathizers.” 

“I don’t think she cares about the Ministry any longer.” Tom is pretty sure that Morgana wants nothing more than to watch it all burndown. She has proven that with her kills that have been sporadic recently. He can not imagine the reason that she would have gone after the Guants. They were a disgraceful Wizard family, it mattered little that they were his remaining relatives. He wouldn’t miss his Uncle and by the way that things were described to him no one else would either. But he can not understand why she would kill him. 

What possibly could she have to gain from killing the practically squib level of a Magician? Sure he had a seat, but he never used it. The only thing he can think of is it was meant to hurt him, draw him out maybe, but if that was the case she was not nearly as smart as she pretended to be. Tom never met his Uncle and cares nothing for him. 

~/*\~

The moon was shining high above them, it was the only light to the winding path that led through the woods. The stars were glittering under thin blankets of clouds, the wind was harsh and stabbed through his robe. He had to spell it to be warmer. Victoria would have complained otherwise. There are 5 order members in total. Abraxas, Walburga, Moody, McGonagall, and himself. The oldest of them being Mcgunigal. 

They creep towards the old stone building. It had once been used in the world war as a shelter for wounded soldiers, there is damage done to the outer walls. There are holes and a partially caved-in roof. They split. Moody and Walburga head towards the sheds and other complexes. The rest of them continue to creep towards the main building. 

There was the hum of magic. Tom could feel it the second that he got closer to the hole in the wall by that time it was too late to warn Abraxas that he was shot backward at least 20 feet. Mcgunical poked at the shield that had appeared in front of her. And Tom realized that he was alone on his side. 

His wand gripped tightened in his hand. 

~Stay Calm~ Victoria was reminding him. ~Be alert.~ 

She was right of course. He tested his magic against the barrier to see how successful it would be to try and break it. The magic hummed greater and he felt it burn. It was definitely not something that he would simply be able to leave from. 

His heart sped a little, this had trap written all over it. 

He had always been smart. He could think his way out of anything. There might be a rune somewhere to power this shield. All he would have to do was find it and damage it. His best hope was to get the back up behind the wards to help him find and destroy the things that he was supposed to. He wasn’t even sure if there was anything useful that he should try to save. 

He cast a muffling charm and a disillusion and stepped into the ruin. 

The place was small, it dipped under the ground. The first floor of it had nothing, not even a guard on duty. He waited, wondering if the ward would give anyone a reason to check. But they could be doing the very thing he was. It was not exactly an original idea to try and hide. 

“Reveilo.” He whispered and there was still no one, but there were faint traces of magic on the floor. There was a lot of it coming from down below. If there was a way to get the others through or to get out of this mess, it would be down there.

Salazar, help him. 

He had no idea what was lurking down there, he didn’t even know how deep it went, or how stable the structure was. 

He sighed if this wasn’t his life. 

He slowly made his way down the stairs pausing every few steps to check for wards or other magical entrapments. The space was poorly lit but if he lit his wand then it would be a beacon that said please feel free to pick me off, I am an easy target. 

So he tried to squint and adjust his eyes to the dark. There were lights up ahead, faint flickering candlelight. There were cells down here, the old iron bars were haunting. He could feel the chill to the air. 

How many people died in those cells? 

He could imagine that it was a lot, he knew there were not always enough rations for the soldiers let alone the prisoners. There was also the fact that maybe they were tortured or starved on purpose here. The chill was making his arms have goosebumps. He nearly tripped on the uneven stones winding further downward. 

This place must have had tunnels below for ammunition. It was the only reason he would think there would be anything else downward. Upward had completely fallen out but he figured that would have been where care was immiserated. It was down there that he saw the first glimpse of light. There was a desk set up with a cauldron. There were ingredients spread about. He inched closer to it. There were many books opened to complex lists of instructions that were unreadable to him. He knew some Latin but not all this. 

There was a small sound and he tensed. 

“Not a very clever boy are you?” A voice came from somewhere in the room with him. “You didn’t realize that this room neutralizes glimmers and disillusion charms.” 

He whirled, but there was no one there. His eyes darted his wand ready with a shielding charm. 

~Behind you. I can smell her.~ Victoria hissed and before Tom could even blink there was a flash of light and she slumped against him, she was out cold. 

“Couldn’t have her giving the game away.” There was another spell aimed at him and he barely was able to deflect it. 

The next one was a stinging one, he felt it hit his leg and knew that there would be a bruise there. 

“Come now, certainly you can do better.” The soft feminine voice turned almost playful. 

He cast a reveilo but there was no one there, there were no traces.

He was hit again with a stinging hex this time a little more powerful and in the arm. 

“Fight Fair.” He demanded. 

“I don’t think that I will.” The woman replied. “Let this be a lesson to you, I don’t have to play fair and you should never be goaded into giving up your advantage.” 

He aimed a stunner at where he narrowed her voice down too.

“Oh that was pretty good it almost hit me.”

He grits his teeth. The shield he made shattered and he landed hard against the ground Victoria falling limply off of his shoulders. He tried to get up and he found himself being tied up with vines that sprung from the floor; they twisted his arm hard enough for him to drop his wand. And keep him on his knees. 

A woman appeared near him, she took off a cloak that was colorful, he had never seen an invisibility cloak before. She was pretty, he might have hated her in the moment but he could not imagine such a person being the one that was capable of hitting Victoria with such a strong spell, it was dark. He could tell that much. He struggled hard as she stepped a few more steps closer. She tilted his head up to look at her and her brown eyes bored into his. Her touch was not painful, but that didn’t mean that he wanted her to do that. 

“You have really grown haven’t you, but you are still a boy with much to learn.” She shook her head, her long painted nails added just a little bit of pressure. 

“Who are you?” If he could get her to talk he could buy time for the others to get to him, or figure a way out of this. Possibly get his wand back. 

“I am surprised that you don’t know, considering it is your supposed job to kill me.” She sounded like she was greatly amused at this.

“Morgana…” He could suddenly not breathe, and it was not because she had done anything to him. It was in anticipation of what she was going to do to him. 

She nodded letting go of him. “That was the name I chose when I started this mess. I couldn’t run around as Hermione could I? It doesn’t have the same ring to it. Tell me did Dumbledore send you to finally clean up the mess that he created tonight or did you just stumble unfortunately onto me?”

He did not answer her, he placed his mental shields up in preparation for torture. But she didn’t do anything but move back to where her ingredients were.

“It is not a hard question.” 

“I don’t have to answer it.” He hissed at her. 

“No you don’t, but I am going to assume that it is the second. Dumbledore would have prepared better if he really knew. But then he has always sent children to do his dirty work for him. How many little graduates has he thrown against me? How many children has he left to poor conditions that have joined me?” 

Tom blinked at her and she smiled nicely at him as if they were having a friendly chat. 

“Yes, he has sentenced quite a few to death, all for his sake of pride. You see Tom Riddle, Dumbledore, and the others are really what creates monsters like me.” 

“I know you grew up in an orphanage.” Tom started. “I know that you were at risk there from the blitz....”

“Oh, I was at risk for far more than that. Many of his students were and yet he sent them back. Each one to war-torn countrysides. You are very fortunate that you were born after the air raids.”

Tom says nothing.

She looks at him intensely from her place by the potion that she is making. She tilts her head and her eyes seem almost black in the lighting. “I don’t think you feel like you have ever been fortunate in your life. Which isn’t surprising I know a lot about you. I bet he told you that it was your sole purpose and your responsibility to kill me.”

Tom struggles a little again trying to get his arm that is crushed to his side towards where his wand has dropped. She notices his struggles but doesn’t do anything about it. He doesn't know if it was because she thinks that her spell is strong enough to hold him or because she thinks he is stupid enough that she doesn’t have to worry about him at all. 

“Come now, Tom, it will be a long night if we don’t talk. The shield will hold long enough for me to finish my potion. I made it with my own blood.”

“Blood magic is strong.” He relents. “And if you carved stones to hold it in place in an array they aren't going to be able to enter without your permission.” 

He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that knowledge at all. It could be days until the stones are dry enough and no longer powered. He is really starting to panic now. 

She smiles at him, her pretty face gleaming in the candlelight. She sits at the work table. “It could be weeks, but I won’t keep you here that long as I don’t plan on being here for more than an hour.” 

He rests again against the bonds that are tightening slightly. Everything in him is telling him to think… the only way out is to trick her, but he doesn’t know anyone stupid enough to release an already disarmed and trapped adversary. 

“I am not going to kill you.” She shakes her head, her face has a frown on it now. She sends a few things into the cauldron wandlessly. 

“You expect me to believe that?” He nearly laughs, because he knows that isn’t the truth.

“You don’t have to believe me.” She moves a little closer to him. “I feel bad for you. He took you like he did others from a broken place. Pushed all the world's problems onto you, a boy that is 16. Told you that you had to do it as it is for the greater good. But what has the world ever done for you, besides push you into the dirt? Your family died begging me not to kill them. I did so because I felt disgusted by what they did to you.” 

“You…why?” He can’t help but blink at her. 

“Because I know what it is like.” She is close again, she puts her hand on his head. He closes his eyes tightly. Her touch is soft and he slowly opens them again as she flattens the strands. “I grew up in a place without love, without compassion, and my magical guardian was Dumbledore. He sent me back each summer. He thinks abuse builds character.” 

She sighs letting go of him, he can feel the vines loosen as she picks up his wand. “I killed the old woman first, she locked you in the old church, didn’t she? Let the crows in there swoop at you and claw at you. She beat you, starved you, had you repeat bible verses, and then you went to him and I can not say that you wouldn’t have been fed lies on top of lies. What do you know of my mission?”

She is confusing, not at all what he has been told. He knows that it can be a trick, a trap, but if she is lying to him she is the best liar that he has ever met. It doesn’t show in her movements, it is not in her eyes. Still, she has his wand and even if the vines are crumbling around him, he will not make a move against her. Even with what she is doing is stupid and risky. 

“I know that you have killed people in acts of terrorism against the Ministry and Pureblood families. You want equality, but seem to have picked off a lot of people that fit a certain mold.” He answers carefully.

“Yes, that would be the filtered version of it. I will not deny that I have killed people, I have killed a lot of them.” She rubs his yew wand, turning the well-polished wood in her hands. “But I am really trying to tear down the status quo. I grew up with Muggles, you have as well. You see how things are with them, they fear us. The children born to them, most of them that will have magical abilities are born into a world that doesn’t understand them. Purebloods would say they are better to be exterminated, that the children never learn of magic at all. I disagree. I believe that we should take the children away before there is a chance for them to be abused and they can learn alongside those that naturally are born here. You have been at a disadvantage coming in late to our world.” 

He nods, there is nothing restraining him, and he rubs at his wrist. He knows now what she is doing. She is trying to recruit him. But he can understand her view. “Purebloods have the ability to practice over the summers as there is no way to trace the magic that is happening in the home.” 

“Yes, more reason for my cause, the education of muggle-borns is lacking. There are also too few learning options. Children are being indoctrinated to the political beliefs of the school. It's nice to promote equality. It is another to pretend that anyone that speaks up about the injustices is just complaining, or are foolish. Some of my closest are considered Half Breeds, where is their justice? Where are those that have the capability to think and act rights? Merpeople, Giants, Goblins, House-elves, and centaurs they are all intelligent are they any less than us? What gives us the right to take from them and deny them their heritage? While those that are bigoted are in charge there is no hope for any of it to be accomplished.”

“But you are slaughtering innocent people.” Tom points out. “Many of them are magical.” 

She shakes her head at him. Standing up and leaving him there. “Innocent people are always caught in the crossfire. I can not be held completely responsible for those that will get in the way of progress. I tried to do it their way. And they killed Harry for it.” 

She waves her wand that is thin and has many bumps on it. The potion that she is making bottles itself. 

“Not anymore. I now have the artifacts that I need to make my final push and destroy what is left of the Ministry. They are weak and they have put all their faith in symbols that will crumble.”

He stands slowly and Victoria is starting to stir. 

“You don’t have to be one of them. I don’t have to kill you.” She shakes her head. “It would be a waste.” 

She pockets whatever her project was and dumps the rest of the ingredients into whatever is left so that they will be destroyed. 

“Is this the part where you tell me to join you or die.” Tom grits out. He doesn’t want to play games anymore. His head is spinning. He is not sure if it is from all the information that she has dumped into his lap or if it is because of the potion fumes. 

She laughs it is like the sound of chimes, loud, vibrant, and full of life. “Godric no. This is the part where I give you, your wand back and options. We can part and head our separate ways, not friends and definitely not enemies, we can become friends and I can teach you magic beyond most compensation. Or…” Her voice turns harsh. “We can fight it out like you have been trained to and I will decide that you are just another tool of the old man.” 

There is a rumbling from above. The ceiling above him seems to be vibrating, he doesn’t think that it will hold. He takes his eyes off her and she is again inches from him, her hand outstretched with his wand. The second he reaches to take it she pulls him close to her. “It looks like your friends thought to dig under, clever.” Her voice tickles his ear. “It’s your choice. But be warned I have all the Hollows now and if you do choose to fight me head-on, you will lose.” 

She lets go of him and he points his wand wearily at her. Abraxas is in the door frame and he shoots a spell that is easily deflected. She hits him with a stupify if she really was the monster that Dumbledore has told him of she would have shot a killing curse. 

She steps over his slumped body and he watches her go. Hearing her calling out more curses as she does. She can't apparate perhaps in the compound and is making her way out of it. He picks up Victoria. She is starting to twitch. He runs his hand over her small body. He is grateful that she will be alright. He takes the books that are on the table and hides them in his robe. He then helps drag Abraxas from the basement that is starting to fill with some sort of smoke that is making him feel light-headed. 

~/*\~ 

He is chewed out for something that was not his fault. He ignores the words they throw at him and he wonders if they think berating him will make him feel more inclined to help them or that it will magically make him better at defending himself. The only one that doesn't say anything particularly nasty to him is Abraxas and that is probably purely because Tom dragged him out of the building that eventually imploded in on itself. Morgana is very good at getting rid of the places she no longer needs, and loose ends. 

~/*\~

He is thrown again to the ground by a powerful spell. Dumbledore is shaking his head at him. He is still a lot stronger than Tom and he says that it is training, but it feels a lot more like he is being punished for not being able to do anything when he faced Morgana. It hadn’t even been a battle. He was very lucky to be alive, was what everyone kept saying.  
But luck had nothing to do with it. Morgana chose to keep him alive. She chose to give him a choice. 

Tom when he wraps his wrist again it is burning, and he can’t bring himself to move it. He spends the next few days recovering and looking into what Morgana had told him… The Hollows and the supposed rumors that go with them. 

A master of death…She has collected them all. He is sure of it. He saw her with the wand and the cloak. 

He doesn’t like his odds in facing that, but perhaps she is right. He doesn’t have to fight her. This isn’t his fight unless he wants it to be. He is under no obligation to fulfill a prophecy. One that says that he will calm her not end her. Perhaps that is really his purpose, give her more options than destruction, bring hope for peace that way. 

~What do you think, Victoria?~ He hisses to her. 

~I think the hatchling needs to leave the nest or the other snakes will eat him.~ Was her low hissed response. 

He agrees with her, it isn’t like he has many things to pack or reasons to stay.


	2. Chapter 2

Morgana La Faye. It is the name that she has chosen. It is the name that translates to the start of her journey, sea, and circle, each has their meanings to her. She was born at a sea cove when the other children tried to drown her, where she experienced magic for the very first time. Water was something that she studied and could manipulate better than most. She could speak mermish and the love for the sea had never died for her. It had been merciful to her and tainted those that had hurt her. Making them instead drown trapped in that sea cave to forever be part of its seafloor. The circle directly in counter of her goals. She will break the endless circle. Some of the greatest philosophers talked about how abuse is a cycle. She would say that a lot of things in life are cycles, bigoted, racist, evil people, they breed more wicked people. She can include herself in that cycle. 

She can be every bit as vicious and cruel as the monsters that made her. She can also be quite kind if the mood strikes her. She was human, she still had humanity for goodness sake for better or for worse. She was Hermione still to a few of her other friends that were still alive. Ronald came from a pureblood house, his family was large and they had little time for him. They were considered Blood Traitors for associating with people like her. But he understood her wishes, her need for revenge, and equality. He is backing her for the sake of Harry.

She finds that she does all that she is for his sake. She perhaps has disillusioned herself into loving a person or realizing that she was in love with them after they are dead. She does not know which it is. But Harry, he was too good for the world. So kind, so selfless and Dumbledore had fed him to wolves. Given him to be slaughtered. Just as he had tried to do to her when he learned that she had on a fundamental level agreed with some of Grindelwald's ideas. 

Magic should be kept to Magical people. Magicians should not fear Muggles and protect them from every little thing, they should be monitored but their lives not out valuing those that are magical. She is not about killing Muggles because they are Muggles. She knows them to be human just as much as she is, but she doesn’t think that they should have access to Magical children. She wants them to be taken away from homes that have a high risk of being abusive, where their existence is a risk and an accident waiting to bring attention to the magical world. 

If they took people sooner and introduced them to their world they would be safer. There would never have been such a pain in her chest. The ring on her finger is cold, as she thinks about Harry. All that she would have to do was turn it thrice and she would be able to speak with him. She has tested it by calling back her dead parents, she knows that it works. But she can not bring herself to. Harry would not like what she has become. He would argue that the deaths that coat her hands in blood are not worth it. It is not worth revenge for him if she is going to damn her soul over it. But Morgana does not back down. She doesn’t bend, even for friends and even if she could there was no way to turn back.

Her plan was a solid one. She had been plotting it for years, ever since Harry, had died to it. Died by the neglect of his Magical Guardian and her useless speeches against the Ministry. She ran her hand over the cloak. The silky feeling harsh against her fingertips. Harry had been the only family that she would ever consider herself to have. He was abused too and he understood her better than anyone else ever would. 

When she looks at the ‘chosen one’ she sees her beloved friend. She sees his black hair and his warm eyes even if they are not that shade of green. No, they are brown like hers. Perhaps that is what makes him more human to her. The pain that her supposed foil has gone through. 

She stands with the chatter that she can hear outside of the farmhouse that she is currently brewing a few more potions for her followers. They needed more calming droughts and she is not above working for her cause. This place is more for her injured members and chatter can never mean anything good. 

She stands fixing her cloak over her dress, running a hand through her hair before stepping out into the sunlight. 

“What is with the noise?” A few of her followers turn to her. They clear like she is parting the sea. 

“One of the scouts found a boy,” Lupin tells her, a few of the other werewolves are looking at her with anticipation. There has been little for them to do lately so catching something probably makes them happy. Not that she would let any of them sink their teeth into a child. Grayback can complain as much as he wants, but if he wants to keep himself from getting slaughtered by hunters he will keep his fangs to himself and his claws dulled. Unless she needs him to fight some of the meddling authorities, the Ministry keeps sending. 

“A boy?” She raises an eyebrow. 

“Yes, some are saying that he is _that_ boy.” Lupin dips his head. 

“I see.” Morgana sighs deeply. “Where is the boy?” She calls loud enough for others to hear her and more people move out of her way. She recognizes the form that is sprawled out on the ground, his limbs showing fresh bruises. They had met a few weeks ago, he looked up at her slowly forcing himself to sit. 

She narrows her eyes. “I wish it I could say it is nice to see you again, little Riddle but I will refrain from saying that until I know the reason for your appearance.” 

“I asked to be brought to you. I wanted to continue our conversation.” His eyes are very dead. They don’t have much life in them. He has really hit a breaking point, hasn’t he?

She has a thing for broken things, she supposes that she collects them. Every single person that has chosen to become part of her group has been broken in some way or another. She likes a challenge to put them back together, give them purpose again. Dumbledore really must have fucked up to send his chosen one running. 

She can not help but smile ever so slightly. “I see.” He is holding at his wrist, she noted the night that the met he had done that too. He catches her looking and he drops it. “Did the damage you have now come from my own or was it done by yours?”

A few of hers shift uneasily. 

Tom says nothing.

“Come now, you can tell me.” Morgana tilts her head. “They will not hurt you any longer.” 

Her voice is cold and calm. She has always despised child abuse and even if he is a few months to 17 it matters little to her, he was still a child.

“Both.” He meets her eyes, he doesn’t shy from her and she can respect that. Many others in his place would be fearful. She holds her hand out to him and he slowly takes it with the other hand, that isn’t injured. 

“Point them out to me.” She grips his shoulders, tight enough to root him to place, but also to make sure he doesn't leave.

“It's not necessary.” Tom doesn’t want to make enemies already here, but such a violation of rules will not stand regardless of who they were bringing her. 

“It is. If you came here peacefully then they know better to attack someone that surrenders. Especially if they are a child.” There is a shuffling of feet and the people that no doubt brought Tom to her are now outed. 

“I’m not a child.” Tom makes no move to pull away from her but he sounds greatly annoyed for being compared to one.

“Anyone younger than me is that child.” She smiles sweetly. “Now tell me.” 

Tom sighs. “The man in the blue cloak. The others were just following orders.” 

“Good boy.” She lets go of him. Turning her attention to her little group of 3. “We know the rules, tell me why they were disregarded.”

Abbott straightened himself up. “I thought that it was best, being that he is the one that is destined to kill you my Lady, the others did as I ordered. I take full responsibility.”

“I am sure you do, but what of the group?” She draws her wand. “We are not sheep are we, why go along with an order that you know to be wrong?” 

There is silence. 

“Ah no good answer between the both of you, were there even any protests?” 

“No,” Tom says bitterly. 

“I thought as much. Abbott, I will split your punishment among your group. Let that be a lesson to all of you, you don’t always have to follow those that are in charge of you if they are going to lead you to do something against your principles.” 

Abbott bowed. “I will take whatever punishment my Lady deems fit.” 

Oh, he would. Abbott is very loyal for a pureblood. It is on account of his wife being a Muggle Born. She thought that she could trust him with such things as leadership, but apparently not. He would pay for abusing power given to him, and she hoped he took this lesson to heart. She would demote him after this, let him prove himself to her again. 

“Remus, please take Tom inside and prepare some Tea. I may be a little while.” She makes herself as calm and collected as possible. She doesn’t want to frighten the poor boy, by what she is about to do. The more time they have to discuss things without her pulling the strength card the better. She never liked using scare tactics, it was necessary sometimes to make those that wouldn't bow, bend the knee. But she doesn't want to use it on a child that has faced great horrors in his life already. 

“Shall we head to the sitting room?” Lupin motions for Tom to follow him. He reluctantly does and she waits till the door is closed before she lets the first Crutio leave her lips. 

~/*\~ 

Tom can see from here he is in the living room the men convulsing on the ground. He can hear their screams. He doesn't know how he feels seeing it. The man had hurt him, but many had and that didn't mean that they should be having the most painful spell possible cast on them. 

“Come away from the Window.” The man, Remus, that has led him to this room, advises. He is a thin man, he had scars on his face, now that he was in the proper lighting he could see them. They looked like claw marks. He catches the way that Tom is staring at him, and doesn’t look completely phased by it. 

Tom carefully takes his advice. He feels very drained. He has been running for a while. The Ministry, Dumbledore, and the Order are all after him. They didn’t take it so well that he didn’t want to fight for their cause anymore. Well they couldn’t be so sure that he had just chosen to get up and leave, it was not like he gave them a note. But he was determined not to go back. He doesn't like being lied to, he doesn’t like being a tool, and he is no longer going to allow it to happen. He didn’t necessarily want to join and become one of Morgana’s people, but he wanted to be safe… and he thought perhaps she could offer it. 

This was probably one of the least safe places that he could be, but she had not killed him when she had the chance to weeks ago. She had let him go, and he still thinks that the prophecy is more along the lines of him trying to reach some sort of middle ground between the two warring sides. There has been 15 years of bloodshed, it needed to end one way or another. 

“Sit, and I will have the tea ready in a few minutes.” The man bowed his head and left the room, his darker robes moving around him with his quick exit. 

Tom sits on one of the sofas, the white one, the place looks very well decorated and furnished. It was as if he was in someone’s nice house. It was nothing like he had expected. He doesn't know what he expected but he figured that it would have more black, and perhaps not be as normal looking. He almost feels like he is back at the manor as it is very Muggle like, and there are no hints of magic. 

His wrist is still hurting, he wished that they hadn’t seen fit to step on it. It's always been messed up, an old injury that didn’t heal well leading to nerve damage. He rubs it and grips it harder trying to bring back a decent feeling from it. It is moderately successful. 

Remus returns with a Tea tray and Morgana enters just as he is setting it down at the table. 

“Thank you, Remus.” She nods her head to him, throwing off her robe over the sofa and sitting across from Tom. She looks comfortable in a black dress, it looks very plain but he supposes that she doesn't dress up to do work around the place. He wonders if this house is a resting place. He had investigated it because there had been whispers about a safe house form the Order. 

“Will that be all?” The thin man asks. 

“All that I need for now.” She answers with grace. “Though I would like you to check on Abbott later, he might need help changing his bandages. 

“Of course.” 

There is nothing but the sound of the clock ticking and Morgana leaning forward to make herself a cup of tea. Her brown eyes look at him through thick eyelashes. 

“Do you like sugar in yours?” She asks, pouring him one as well. 

“No thank you.” He responds not sure that he will drink it. He just holds the cup that she has handed him. 

“It would be insulting to Remus if you don’t take some. He makes a nice blend.” Her eyes flash, “unless you think that I would slip anything into your drink.” 

“Would you?” Tom grips a little harder on the handle. He feels again like he is entering a dance. He has seen what she is willing to do to even her own followers. Even if she is treating him as a guest there is no guarantee that it will stay that way. 

“No.” She raises her cup to her lips. “You wished to talk so my assumption is that you are looking to be neutral or are thinking of joining my side. There is no need to act against you unless you make me.” 

He takes a small sip, not quite believing her. The taste strikes him as sweet, and rich. It smells like flowers. He takes another one. 

“I did come for that reason.” He answers honestly. “I don’t want to fight anymore. Especially if you are the master of death. I am very tired of being a pawn, and being lied to.” 

She places her drink neatly onto the table with almost a certain grace to it, her movements. He is starting to notice that they are deliberate, meticulous, she has lots of practice in hosting. 

“Mistress of Death.” She corrects him with a slightly smug look. “Yes, I can respect you for knowing when it is time to say enough is enough. So what brings you here, do you wish to join my cause or just hide here?”

“I can stay here without joining you?” He asks skeptically. 

“I think that I would enjoy your company, I noticed that you were the brightest to come out of Hogwarts for a very long time.” She folds her hands into her lap. “I think since me to be honest. I would like to see what you are capable of. I hate seeing talent wasted. I don’t need you to be fighting for my side on the front lines or otherwise. There are plenty that want to do that. I would not mind help doing other things, and passing on my knowledge.” 

“And what would that entitle, an apprenticeship?” He shakes his head at the idea of it. This conversation is not going the way that he thought that it would. It was going a lot better than he thought it would if he was going, to be honest.

“I would not be opposed to that.” She looks very pleased. It’s odd. He has never had someone look pleased with him. He is very used to people expecting a lot from him, expecting him to jump at the chance to learn from them as he is the chosen one. He is supposed to be exceptional. He is supposed to want to learn new inventive ways to cause harm, how to fight, even if his interests are not centered there. 

“What would I even study.” He narrows his eyes.

Dark arts, and other things that he was yelled at for even thinking about?

What would the proclaimed light side’s greatest evil be willing to share with him? 

She rubs her hand a little against the other. “I do a lot of potions for my forces and act as a healer for them. I would teach you what I know in those things, but I am sure that I can match you in runes and magical creatures. We have a lot that have joined us. You don’t wish to study competitive magic I am sure.” 

Tom glares slightly. “It's not that I hate that type of magic, it’s just I don’t like when my teacher repeatedly hits me with things that I have no chance of blocking, or defending against and then calls it training.” 

She laughs at him. “That coot really is a piece of shit isn’t he.” 

It takes him off guard, her laugh there is not that vibrant one that he had heard the night at the compound. This one is very disturbed, bitter even. 

“He doesn’t change.” Her voice gets hard. “How about this, you will pick what you are to study and I will protect you from those that would wish you harm. In return for teaching you, I would like the company and help with treating those that have been hurt by the war. Does that sound fair, no need to be on my side, no need to die for a cause that expects it of you.” 

It sounded too good to be true.

“And you give your word on that?” He is studying her face. She shows no lie. 

“I will do you one better. I will vow it. All that join in some way take a vow with me. I promise to let them leave should they choose to, and they promise me loyalty in and outside of my service. Remus can serve as the witness after we set terms.” 

“You let people leave your cause, they just say one day that they are done and that's it. You let them leave.” 

That made no sense. Tom will not believe that. It is too kind from what he has heard about her. Even from what he has seen. She hit her own with an unforgivable. But he had accepted it, they had not even begged. She seemed to run a tight ship…

But it couldn’t be by fear, she never would have lasted as long as she had. 

She puts her cup back to her lips. Her hair falls a little around her face. “You have seen war, you see how people die, there are some that can’t get up after they see it and they can’t process it. There are those that see something or have to kill someone and they break. They can’t do it again or anymore.”

Her brown eyes glisten, and he feels the way emotion bleeds into her tone. He can see in the way that she holds herself that she has seen some things, she has caused some things. She is a fighter, the type that Dumbledore wanted out of him. But Tom is not like that. He has seen death and it has only made him fear dying before he had a chance to live. He has seen bad things, he has seen people weep for those that were lost, but he has never felt the blow. He has never cared for another person that much. The only thing that came close to it was Victoria. He has not felt sorrow for another besides himself. He has always felt that there was something wrong with him, for not having that ability to feel. 

He wonders if there is a way to learn this if even Morgana La Faye can feel for others. Certainly, he can learn. 

“I let them leave, as part of their agreement to me, they can not betray me. They can not tell anything about our plans even if they wanted to. If someone tries to force it they will lose the memories associated with me and the mission. It is a fail-safe. I designed it so that people could be safe.”

She plays with her pendent a tad. It is a triangle and he knows it to be the symbol for the Deathly Hallows. “Ah but that is off-topic.”

~/*\~

Morgana has spent far too long fighting this war. The chosen one, perhaps can not understand. He has not loved and lost. She can tell by how he looks at her. His eyes are dead. They are those of someone that has been surviving and only that. He fidgets not because he is scared, but because he can not sit still. There probably has never been a time that he has not felt cornered by something. Usually, they are the eyes of someone that she wants to send home, send them to collect themselves. But he looks like he is looking for a purpose and she can offer him that. She would like to offer it to him. The thin boy in front of her was just missing a scar covering his forehead from where his face had been smashed into a table. He needed the glasses and he could be Harry. 

He was in need of something more and she could teach him more. He had potential. He could be her link to the other side and getting them to back down. But he also could be her reason not to slaughter every one of those Pureblooded supremacists, because out of that horrid Gaunt line had come such a child. 

He didn’t seem to have come here to hurt her in any way. It wasn’t like he would be successful if he wanted to kill her either. She had acquired the Hollows as her way of securing that she would live until her mission was completed. She didn’t leave it at all to chance. 

“What is it that you would like Riddle?” She asks him. “Do you want the apprenticeship, do you wish for protection? Tell me and we shall see if we can reach some sort of agreement that suits us and we will finalize it. I don’t wish to leave you to your own devices before that.”

He blinks at her, as if no one has asked him such a question, and she does her best to keep her mask. 

“I just want to live.” He says quietly. The way he says live is strange like he is not sure what that even entitles. 

“That is not high of a goal.” She snaps at him. “Godric child, there has to be more to it than that. You are bright and worth something, don’t say life. Life could be in chains, it can be in constant pain, there has to be more to your desires than that.”

He smiles weakly. “I gave up wanting more, long ago, but I did at one time what my grandparents and father suffered for what they did to me.” 

“I have granted that wish partially, your father is out there somewhere I am afraid. I thought that a magical artifact might be at the estate passed down from your mother to him, but I was wrong. Is your father’s head on your list?”

“No.” He grips his pant legs, trying not to touch the locket that is against his chest, but she saw his hand travel towards it briefly. “I wish to learn how to apparate, be able to go places freely, not have someone always watching me. I want to be able to talk to snakes without feeling like I am an abomination. I want to study things that interest me, not just combat and protective charms. I want...”

He stops and she can feel the longing in his voice. He wants to be free from the people that have been holding his life in a tight leash. He wants freedom without daring to ask for the word. 

“There are no silly desires.” 

“I want to learn how to not just survive day to day.” 

Yes there it was.

She smiled greatly. 

She knew what hid in that word survival, he wanted to feel alive. It came with love, passions of what interested him, space to grow, and decide what made him who he was.

“Done.” She stands papers flying to the room as she calls them and ink writes down all that he has said to her. He watches as they stop waiting for her to make her wishes known for their agreement. Tom watches her with eyes that are still dull, but slightly relaxed. 

“I ask you to be my apprentice then, learn from me how to find meaning in life. All that I ask of you is your loyalty, and that you do not betray me, while you are staying here with me in my service or otherwise. I shall protect you Tom Riddle so that when this war is over you may have that freedom that you so desire as while the war is on your life will be in danger should you roam too far. But you have my word that I shall teach you to apparate, to give you as much as is possible without compromising your safety.”

“Deal.” He agrees with her. 

The promise is made with Remus present. Blue powerful magic bound her to her end of the deal and him as well. Morgana almost laughed at the irony of it. The boy who was chosen, who was attempted to be turned into a weapon against her, now was in her care. 

~/*\~

Morgana spent a lot of time with Tom. She gave him full run of the farmhouse and the land that surrounded the facility. She dismantled compulsion charms that had been placed on him and the tracing spells. She taught him anything that he asked her about, gave him books that he could only dream of reading. 

She also gave simple touches, he hadn’t noticed it at first but she would touch his arm or ruffle his hair. He had never had anyone give him any sort of positive touch. It was nice when she complimented him, noticed his accomplishments, and asked him thoughts on her latest plans. He felt valued for the first time in his life, which had been something that he had always wanted. Never knew that he needed. She cared for him, even pushing back one of her raids when she heard that he was sick. 

Morgana became someone that he missed when she went away for long periods of time. She left him with Remus for the most part. He wasn’t a babysitter though. Remus just watched the projects that happened out of the farmhouse. Where Tom was expected to be if he was not enjoying his freedom. If anything happened he was to apparate straight there or use the portkey that was enchanted for him. 

He had been traveling a little, trying to explore some of the forests around them. He had encountered things from boggarts to Veela. When he was not out researching hands on her helped Remus or Morgana with brewing. The farmhouse was where a lot of potions were made and ingredients were grown in secret. The injured from the war came through. They had the spare beds to the home, and the barn was converted for even more beds. She had started her full-on assault campaign against Europe's ministry officials. There were not enough to stand against her, and she was weeding out any that would oppose the control that she was planning to assert. 

He had convinced her not to use werewolves in her latest assault, least not ones that had been transformed. Things were not as bloodied as they could be. He was sure that no one would thank him from the light supposed side. They, if they knew he was alive at this point, would probably accuse him of being a traitor. But he didn’t feel that way. Under Morgana Tom had been able to feel actually happy for the first namable time since he thought that he never would have to go back to his grandparents. That joy had been short-lived, as when he thought that he was gaining freedom, all he got was stipulations and a diffrent sort of prison. If anything he felt betrayed by the people that were supposed to care about him, supposed to support him. He had never realized that the world had so much to it, so many things to learn, so many people that could see him as more than a sacrifice or a disappointment. 

He had learned what it meant to live, and he liked being able to preserve life in others. He learned all that he could from Remus, Morgana, and others on healing. He became gifted at it. Inventing his own spells. He was young, but he was powerful, now being free to explore and learn what he was able. He felt confident in himself. And he knew it showed in all that he did. Nothing made him feel more powerful than displaying his ability to bring someone back to health from the brink of death. 

Tom Riddle became known as Voldemort in hushed conversations, as death fled from him and flocked apparently to wherever Morgana went. He did not mind the name. It saved him from the looks that he got from saving people that perhaps were against the cause. If they knew that Tom Riddle had eventually been won over to the 'Darkside' things really could have been unpleasant. Voldemort had no supposed other obligations, he was someone completely else. After all Tom Riddle had been a scared child, Voldemort was a powerful Wizard and skilled healer. One, that could end someone if needed protecting himself or his clients.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt the need to write more so I upped the chapter number to 3.


	3. Chapter 3

The night sky steams through the upstairs bedroom. It's late, and his eyes are starting to dry no matter how he blinks at them. But he has stayed up still studying the newest healing book. New techniques that he needs to commit to memory. 

He hears a soft beep and knows what that means. Tom shakes his head, he really doesn’t want to do this again, but if he doesn’t then who would?

She never listens to anyone, and she said that she would be heading to bed, that was another lie. Tom really can't stand lies. Even if they are simple things that she can put a loophole into. He knows a bit about how she operates having been in her company a few years now. 

He sighs standing and spelling the lights to his room off. He makes his way down to the kitchen preparing a speech in his head. Because he is better at planning things, then he is coming up with something on the fly. It's probably why he overthinks everything, and can’t fight as well as someone with his size magical core. Well, that and his teacher had been horrible.

He can see her making herself yet another cup of coffee. Her brown-black hair is puffed up each and every way. Yes, she looks horrible. He scowls and shakes his head. 

“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to say something?” She looks up from her work, one would think that she was making a potion with the care that she is putting into adding the milk and measuring the sugar. 

“I think you know what I am already going to say.” He folds his arms not wanting to give her an inch because then she will take a mile or five. 

“Ah.” She raises a brow. “I do have an inking.” 

She puts herself at the end of the table and summons another book from the side office. It hits the glass of the door that he has closed and slides down the frame and she sighs. It has to be the most done sign that he has ever heard the woman make. 

“Well played Riddle.”

“You have been up for 53 hours.” He glares at her, trying to get her to understand how serious this has become. He had mentioned her sleep issues earlier and they didn’t do anything. This time he was determined to stay focused and not let her wiggle her way out of basic needs. Witches needed more than just coffee, tea, and potions running in their veins. 

“Oh, have I?” She sipped her coffee and leaned a little on the table placing her elbows onto it, which is something that she would normally have found rude to do. Adding again to the amounting evidence that she is just too tired to care about appearances. 

Then again it is also him....

“Yes.” He frowns deeper as she doesn’t seem to be listening to him at all taking yet another sip. “You need rest, not more coffee and whatever else that you placed in there. I swear if it is another pepper up potion.”

“If it was what you do about it?” She is amused by the way that she is smiling at him, which just makes this whole interaction a bit more frustrating. 

“I don’t know, go on strike.” Tom bends a little sitting down at the table and she sends a cup his way. “your health habits are concerning.” 

“I can’t die dear.” She takes another sip.

“No, but you can certainly drain yourself. You told me that while you can not die you still feel the effects or what ills you.” Tom takes a sip of the brew. It is very dark and he pushes it a little away from him as he stands to get the milk. 

“That is true enough, but exhaustion is nothing. I have an attack to plan.” She shakes her head. “And as long as there are things to do there is no time for rest, as they say there is no rest for the wicked.” 

“You are not wicked though.” Tom points out to her finishing mixing in some milk to help with the bitter taste. 

“It is nice of you to say that, but it is only because I have a soft spot for you that I don’t seem that way to you.” She takes another long sip, closing her eyes for a moment, savoring perhaps the buzz of caffeine and whatever else she has slipped into her cup. 

“You are not as dark as you want to seem. Yes, your rain will be bought by blood, but so were many governments and empires.” Tom is a bit more satisfied with his cup now. “There are many that would argue that you are a hero.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She sighs deeply. “There are a lot of innocents that are dead because of me, Tom. Many things that I have done in my search for power and life that you do not know about, nor will I tell you. Dark is my magic core, and red are my hands.” 

“You still show mercy.” Tom insists. “You also took me in, you could have killed me.”

“And lose out on what skills you could have brought me? I think not.” She scuffs. “You might not have fully joined my cause but your healing skills have saved many people.” 

“Others would not see it that way, they would say that I have joined and I have been corrupted.” Tom shakes his head. 

“Your core is still bright, there is very little that has poisoned it.” Morgana shakes her head. “And you have a knack for saving those that are on the sidelines. I have no concern for them, but you would step into the fire to save someone that would have meant nothing.” 

“It's not that I think they have meaning, it's just I don’t think I am a fan of death. You can argue that it comes for us all. I am sure that your minion would agree with you. But I can’t see people dying before they have the chance to live.” Tom grips a bit harder at his cup, the warmth is seeping into his hands and it feels comforting to him. He has not met with death, but he knows that Morgana has talked with him. He can hear her talking to open air in her offices, though he has never heard a response. 

“And that is why you are special. You can’t care for most people, but try to find that hope, life, and care through the eyes of dying people that thank you.” 

He knows that he has many faults, his empathy for other people is very low if nonexistent. He can show some sort of compassion, he can show sympathy. But he can not exactly feel as they do. Perhaps that is what makes him so calm and ready to help them. He doesn’t fear if he can save them or not. He tries and it is no real loss to him should he not be able to save them. But yes… things for him are muddled. He has not found love. He can not understand it. Nor can he really feel for them when they are in pain. He feels selfish for this. Dumbledore's hard blue eyes enter his head and he grips the mug stronger still. 

“Calm yourself, child.” She grips his arm, he can feel her long nails against his flesh. It makes his hair stand up slightly. He is still not used to touch. He only admittingly lets her and Remus show him any affection that way. And he still can not tell if he likes it or hates it. 

“Perfectly calm.” He bites. “You honestly sometimes astounds me.” 

He wishes that sometimes she would keep these sorts of observations to herself. He doesn’t like the feeling of exposure that it gives him. 

“I never said that it was a bad thing.” She smiles at him. “I think the way that you try so hard to be good despite it to be most admirable.” 

He rolls his eyes and waits for her to take her hand back, but she doesn't. It's so warm. He feels strange. 

“Thanks…” is all that he can manage. She seems to sense his unease and she pats his arm one more time before she lets go. 

She has in his distraction managed to get the door open and her book towards herself. 

“Really.” He scowls deeply.

“I just drank that cup so that I could make it through this book, I need to know what we may be facing in the next attack. I am not familiar with runes that might be outside of Britain and Romania.”

“After it, you will sleep.” He insists.

She chuckles. “Very persistent aren't you, I don’t think you can bully me into it like Remus.” 

“I can. I am your adviser on health, and your best healer. You appointed me to lead healer and when things like heath are concerned I am supposed to out rank anyone.” 

“I did do that, didn’t I? Remus was a little relieved to no longer be responsible for it.” She hummed. “He never could get me to do anything that I didn’t want to.” 

She seems already more relaxed, her potion mixing is really concerning. He is going to have to check that cup for residue to see what she is mixing. He knows that his only is coffee and milk, hers had Godric knew inside of it. If she is constantly taking these things, he wonders how great she will feel if she ever loses her immortality. 

“And where he has failed I will succeed.” Tom puffs up again. 

“A bold proclamation for someone so young.” She folds her hands in front of her, tapping her nails against the table. 

“I am not a child.” Tom hates it when she stoops to bringing up his age. It isn’t like he can change that part of himself. He can not help that he is mature for his age, nor can he help the year that he was born in will directly affect how some in the ranks see him. 

“No, but you are hardly an adult either.” She tilts her head, raising a single finger to open her book towards the middle. She has been reading before this, so at least she isn’t going to push sleep off for too much longer. He is not completely ready to give in though.

“I am 19.” Tom still feels the need to bring that part up. He is a Wizarding adult.

“And I stand by what I said. I am 34, but you don’t see me trying to claim it, it's just a number.” Morgana turns to the next page. “All I cared about when I gave you the position was your adaptability and capableness.” 

He isn’t satisfied with her saying that but he decides to let it slide.

“I will be back in an hour and then I will deploy other methods to get you to rest.” Tom narrowed his eyes standing up slowly from his seat, the coffee will keep him up to make sure that he actually does make it to check in on her again. 

“If you slip a sleeping potion into my drink, I will not be pleased.” Morgana narrows her eyes right back. “I am sure that would count as a betrayal.”

“It wouldn’t be, as I think it would be completely in your best interest.” Tom denies. He is not about to actually slip her a sleeping potion, but he is very close, consequences be damned. 

~/*\~

Morgana notices the way that Remus has been checking the coffee that he is drinking. It is almost humorous in a way the caution that he has been taking. 

“Did Tom threaten to spike yours as well?” She asks, and the poor werewolf jumps. It tells her all that she needs to know that he has not slept enough, usually, he has very good ears. Perhaps she should send him off to rest. However, there are those that need healing from the latest raid and she is sure that is where Tom is. 

“I mean he has successfully gotten me a few times.” Remus straightens up. “I did not know that he was doing the same to you my Lady.”   
Ah, so he has taken to positioning the coffee brews, for those that really should be asleep. She didn’t think that the brat had it in him, but he was placed in Slytherin for a reason other than just his blood. 

“I would have wrung his neck if he had tried it on me.” She shakes her head.

“I beg my Lady’s pardon for me saying this, but I highly doubt that.” He does take a sip of the brew so it must be safe.

It is probably true he is a real asset that she doesn’t wish to lose, but that doesn’t mean that she would forgive him easily if he were to disrupt her working patterns, healthy or not. She doesn’t know what that says of her that she will give him so much roam, so much freedom. 

She is very soft for Tom, and some people know it, but she wonders why she is such with him. It could be the resemblance of Harry. It could be because she knows what he has gone through for the most part, having dug in his disgusting family's head. She still thinks that it is a damn shame that he didn’t let her hunt his father down for his transactions. But Tom was far nicer than she ever would be, even with his inability to feel a full range of emotions. Yes, ever the champion for the light, showing that he is willing to put his life on the line to try and make those in her ranks take care of themselves. Forced sleeping potions and all. 

“I would.” She insists, even though it feels like a lie. “If you run into him tell him that.” 

“Of course.” Remus sounds slightly amused as he heads out of the farmhouse and towards the barns. 

She takes her chances with the coffee and heads to her office space to get final preparations ready. She has heard that Dumbledore was lurking nearby Hogwarts, and since she now had people posted there and had taken over the British Ministry, she didn’t like the idea of him creeping near her school. 

Of course, she doesn’t like the fact that he is even still alive. She really would love nothing better than to kill him in the most horrible of ways. Ending him and hanging his head for all to see would be the jewel to her forming empire. But the old man was a crafty slippery eel and as long as he had breath left in him, he would use it to sway people into dying to her wand. 

Europe was slowly crumbling to her. She had acquired country after country, state after state. And he was always dancing out of reach. He was no doubt amassing everyone that was left to challenge her for a desperate play. 

~/*\~

 **“Tom.”** The voice is soft and yet forceful. It comes near out of nowhere. It commands him awake, making him sit up. He can not see the person or rather thing that makes it. He looks around his darkroom, feeling very tired and wondering if he has dreamed it. 

**My mistress needs you, silly child move.**

Nothing moves, nothing touches him but it is closer. He shivers by the sound of it. He stands up and makes his way out of one of the farmhouse's bedrooms. He can hear a horrible retching noise. It comes from the master bedroom, the room that belongs to Morgana. He steps hesitantly through the open door. 

She is bent over by the table. The wine she had been drinking was spilled, blood was flowing out of her mouth. It drips down her chin and down her neck. She throws up more of it, and it almost looks clotted up into globs. 

**What a way to suffer, anytime you want to die let me know.**

“Fuck off Death.” She growls, and more blood drips down her chin. 

And Tom knows now what is lurking around him, that darkness that almost seems to hide in the corner of his vision, the cool presence is death. And he is for the first time in a long time scared.

He is horrified at what he is seeing, by all that he can tell she should be dead. But she couldn’t die could she?

She looks at him through teary eyes. He is the best healer they have. He has been training for it. Trying to be of use. And what good was he if all he ever did for Morgana was remind her that she needed to drink less and sleep more often when the woman forgot to take care of herself. 

He raises his wand checking the contents of the bottle. 

“It’s a black switch poison.” He muttered not exactly pleased with his diagnosis. “I need to get my supplies, try not to move if death can do anything but stand around have him help sit you somewhere.” 

Tom apparates to his workbench, pulling potions left and right from his shelves, and pops back. Morgana is against the wall at this point. Hundreds of cuts are for sure to be causing more internal bleeding. Tom forces her to drink by holding her nose and mouth shut. She isn’t in her right mind or she wouldn’t be fighting him on this. Her nails dig into his arms, scratches that are going to leave marks. Her magic is potent in the air and he can feel it surrounding him thickly, it's almost near-drowning. 

She must though know it's him, or that he is trying to help at least a little or he is sure that he would have been torn to pieces. It's her eyes that get him. They are the wide and frightened ones of an animal, not even remotely the person that he knows. 

He feels incredibly bad for this, for some reason. As she kicks and her bloody hand trails down his arms weakly. He waits for it all to be gone and hopefully not to be spit back up before letting her breath. She sits limply against the wall. Her eyes are shiny like most of the people that he has seen on their deathbed. He monitors her vitals with an easy flick of his wand. 

“Harry…” She asks, dazed. 

He knows little about Harry. Morgana will not talk about him. Remus has only told him that once Morgana perhaps had been in love, but Dumbledore was responsible for his death. Her mission became more cemented because of him. 

Tom waits until she seems to fall unconscious before he makes any move. Her blood coats his arms. He watches her chest rise and fall. 

She will mend, there will not be lasting damage, of that he is sure. He caught it early enough, it hasn't reached perhaps much past her throat and stomach. He would have been in real trouble if the stuff entered her bloodstream fully. 15 minutes and there wouldn’t have been a real chance of saving her. He doesn't know how well she would continue living with all of her insides shredded. Someone really had planned well. 

He wonders why she had not checked…

But he supposes that she was tired and perhaps not thinking straight. All the more reason why he wants her to sleep more. She will have no choice now, but to rest. It is a terrible price really. 

He moves her to the bed, so at least she will be more relaxed. He hopes that she can forgive that her sheets will be ruined. He takes a cleaning cloth and dabs at her face and neck. Then her arms and then he cleans his own in her bathroom. He dares not to undress her, but he does a few cleaning spells that at least will make them cleaner than what they were. 

He makes a move to leave, but he feels a hard grip on his arm. He at first has the horrible feeling that it might be death. But it’s not. It’s her, he has no idea how she has the strength. She is already nearly mended. She really is a powerful Witch. 

“Stay…” She tells him. Her eyes are soft, and he is not sure if she sees him as himself or if she wants Harry to stay with her. 

“...” He can’t force himself to speak, he has not seen Morgana weak, not ever. She hides it well even when she is bleeding, even when she is in pain. But this face makes her seem soft, vulnerable like she really needs him. 

“Please.” The word is spoken in a near plea. 

“Okay.” He says softly. 

Her grip loosens, and he pulls the chair from the desk to him taking a seat next to her. He lets her hold onto him as she closes her eyes, and hopefully for once has a good dream. 

~/*\~

The face that greets her is a tired one, brown eyes that are hidden nearly with the mask of black bags under them. But even in his tiredness, there is life, there is no hint of the dead eyes that she had seen beforehand. It was amazing what a little kindness and security could do to someone. Tom had begun to flourish. She had seen dull eyes spark with life and now even in his moments that she can tell it is hard for him, there is not that same look of defeat. The person that was clinging to life is gone. 

He really has been a diamond, pressure has made him. He very well might have saved her. No, she couldn’t die but there were things that were worse. Having to rebuild a body, because this one had gotten shredded was not remotely on the things that she wanted to do with her near-immortal life. 

“I am glad that you are awake, you look better.” He smiles slightly, it's a real one. She knows his fake ones. 

He had grown from the boy she had met, he looks like the young adult that he is to her now. Yes, she still sees some of that childishness in his facial features, but there is a dusting of facial hair that shows that he really is a man. 

“I am pretty sure that by looking better you mean not dead, but certainly like shit.” She shakes her head and wishes nothing more than to go back to sleep. 

“You said it, not me.” He defends. 

She lets out a breath to hide a laugh, she is sure that if she is to laugh it will hurt her already upset stomach. 

“You should rest Tom.” She tells him. “How long were you even sitting in that chair?” 

“Had to make sure that you were going to pull through…” He shrugs. “But also because you seemed like you really wanted me to stay.” 

He doesn’t answer her question and there is no way to tell how long that she has been out. She knows that she had wanted him to stay because she trusts him. Dare she think that she is more than fond of him. She cares greatly for him. 

“I am glad you stayed.” She decides on that as her thanks. 

He knows that she will not thank him openly, for not taking advantage of her when she was weak and for doing his job. She can not bring herself to thank him even if it is the right thing to do in these types of situations. She just can’t, she is scared of what emotions will bleed into it. But she does feel there has been a shift in the way that she sees him. 

“Now go rest.” 

“As the lady wishes.” He mock bows as he stands and she is tempted to throw a pillow at him, no matter how childish it is. 

“Tom.” She calls him before he leaves completely. “Call me Hermione.” 

“Sleep well then Mor- Hermione.” He closes the door behind him. 

She has a hard time sleeping both with realizations and because she knows that she is going to have to play a game to find the person responsible for her needed rest and rip them limb from limb. 

~/*\~

It is a long and bloody battle. Tom is sure of it as the time stretches on between the last sighting he has had of Morganna. He sits in waiting to be called, for those that need him. He adorns his black cloak and plays with the hoods feathers. It is cold, and he stands a moment watching his breath trail upward towards the sky. He blends well into the dark. He casts a warming charm onto himself to keep his familiar safe, as she twists tightly around his neck. Her yellow eyes gleam in the candle lights hanging by the barns. There is no sound but the reeds that dance in the wind. The moon is full and all the werewolves are safely tucked into the very barns he is by. Tom moved between them, his wand ready should there be an off chance that he needs to deflect one, that has skipped his careful administrations. He stalks around though the deeper reeds, kicking up the snows powder. 

Victoria lets out a very low hiss. 

~I know~ He pets her head. She is the one that is nervous, she does not like the cold. She does not like the fire of spells that they will step into soon. 

~I don’t like it~ She flicks her tongue in and out. ~it's not natural.~ 

~Snow is something that happens, yearly here.~ He reminds her. 

~Snakes should not be out~ She loosens her hold. 

Yes, he knows that on a deeper level. He should not be going out on a night like this one. He should be safe in the house. But he has moved more out of neutral than he had intended. He cares very much for Hermione and her cause. He has become perhaps a traitor, to the light occasionally. He uses the light that has been born in him, to heal those that are darker and not as capable of healing spells. 

There is a cat Patronus that shows itself and he knows that he has been called, at last. 

He is not scared, nor concerned for anyone that he might find. He has placed his mask on his face, and he is Voldemort. Voldemort doesn’t worry about being found out as Tom Riddle. He is not concerned too much with sides. Yes, he will save those that he knows more than he would save those that have no meaning to him. But he will save any that he can unless he has good reason not to. 

There are very few that fit that list, his father and Dumbledore being the main nameable. He also would rather that Greyback died because he had turned Remus into a creature of the night, and Tom missed him on nights like these. He wouldn’t forgive the transgression against one of the few that he would call friends. 

He brings himself to apparate, the Belgium ministry floors are slick with blood there is crying that can be heard all around him. He doesn’t question the status of things from the nearest Outlier member, nor does he look for Morgana, that is for sure taking note of prisoners and putting anyone out of their misery that Tom would not be able to save.

He starts with a woman that is speaking in a language that he can not understand. Her injuries are easy enough to mend, broken bones are very simple. He roots her in place so that she can not leave but she is no longer crying as hard. The next man has been disemboweled, his intestines hanging out of him, form a deep cutting spell. He is one of theirs. 

He kneels by him. He can see the pain in his face, the human way that he cries, and trembles. And he can feel sorry for the other. It must be excruciating. 

He is begging for death, but a challenge is something that Voldemort lives for. He brings out his potions. Victoria distracting the man as she hisses greatly and puffs herself up. 

This is fascinating, in a slightly nauseating way, the damage is not to the organs but just the flesh. 

His potions help with the bleeding, giving the man more blood then he had before, and then Voldemort sews him up with careful wand movements. He takes care not to cause more discomfort. He fakes the care of someone that knows what it is like to have that for others.

The man is able to speak understandable English to him now, shocked and horrified equally that he is still alive. 

“Vodem...ort.” He stutters. “Thank you, thank you. ” 

And Voldemort nods his head once and kicks the hands away from him that are trying to grip at his robe. He wonders if the spelled stitches will come loose if the man moves too much. Then again it is not exactly his problem. He can sympathize with him on the fact that what has happened to him is horrible. But that doesn’t mean that he wants to stay there with him.

He makes sweeps, more and more people are dead. It seems that this really was more of extermination than a battle. Tom understands, Voldemort thinks it's a waste. He lets Victoria slip to the floor to scout out for Morgana so he can speak to her. 

There are a few others that have minor injuries that he takes care of, even those that are on wand point. They might know who he is, some of them speak thank yous, others utter curses for his help. They don’t want someone like him to help them. They don’t want care from people that they are supposed to hate. It might be just taken as pity. And that might be all that Tom can feel for them in actuality. 

Victoria finds her way back to him. 

~I will lead you.~ And she does. 

“Ah, Voldemort.” Morgana smiles welcomingly. “Done saving all that you can?” 

He tilts his head, looking at who she has a wand pointed at. They are Order members…

He knows the blond. 

It was the only nice person to him on the side of the supposed light.

Abraxas… 

His face is bloodied, but he doesn’t seem to be in too much pain. His wand hand twitches, not to aim anything horrible at those that are holding him, but with the need to fix him. 

She notices his face twist.

“Do you know these people?” She asks him in that voice that is the one he can tell is hinging on sending him home right then and there. She is concerned slightly for his state of mind, seeing her torture them for information, but he knows that she will not stop on his accord. She is soft for him, but she is not going to show any of that affection where it could be used against her. 

“Yes.” He says plainly and Abraxas' grey eyes start looking at him. Studying him and there is recognition there. His eyes are a mix of many things, and the emotions flash across his face, hurt, relief, and betrayal. “Abraxas was once someone that I would call a friend, the others not so much.” 

She plays with the elder wand, seemingly contemplating. “Would it bother you if I killed him, he has sworn to fight against me as he has taken the phoenix insignia and you know how much I hate those that follow that old man blindly enough to take his mark.” 

Would it?

Tom is not sure, and the cool that he can be when he is acting as Voldemort is fading quickly. Abraxas had always been kinder to him. He was not the best friend, but he tried. He tried to bandage him a few times and always tried to comfort him after the fact of something happening to him. He never stood up for Tom. He never called any of the others out other than privately with Tom. 

But he had seemed like he cared at the very least…

He had been good enough to try.

“If he can not be turned or convinced to lay down his wand rather than his life, I will understand.” He decides to play it safe. He silently is hoping that Abraxas takes this hint. 

“Hmmm.” Morgana turns from him. The green light flashed and took down the older man that was next to Abraxas. The next flash was for the woman that was to the right. Abraxas grits his teeth. “He is the leader of this defense, he will probably not bend and I will be taking him with us for now, I need more information than I feel comfortable extracting here.” 

“If he lives, may I heal him.” His throat is suddenly bothering him. 

“I will not let you keep a pet. He bends the knee or I kill him.” Morgana doesn’t compromise. 

He doesn’t expect her to. 

“Then let me at least try to convince him.” He does not back down completely either.

“Try and save his soul then.” Morgana urges seeming almost amused in a twisted way that he wants to try. “We return home.” 

~/*\~

Morgana doesn’t believe that Tom will be successful. She will give him the fair chance to save him though. She can tell how bothered Tom is by it. It is the first time that she has seen his mask that he wears somedays crumble. She sets up her prisoner in the shed with guards posted outside and leaves her foolish boy to try and reason with someone that is set in their path.   
She will be there for him to pick up his broken pieces, just as she was the day that they made promises to one another. She stands by her promise to protect him. She tries her best to shield him from the emotional backlash as well. But some lessons are best learned first hand. 

~/*\~

Tom tries to steady his hands when he cleans the blood off of Abraxas’s face. He is silent and he is looking at him with cold dead like eyes. Tom doesn’t like the look. He doesn’t know what to say to him, so he doesn’t. He thinks about apologizing, but that is just a trained response from his time on the light side and his grandparents. He has done a lot of saying sorry for things that were not even his fault. He is not really sorry for joining a winning team, or for seeking his freedom. A lot of his confidence is bleeding out of him like a gaping wound because it is as if the past he has run from is slapping him in the face.

He doesn't want Abraxas to hate him, as childish is that is. 

He puts on a few bandages for the scrapes on his face and frees his hands from their binding. He might not have much that he can do for the other, but he would treat him as a person should. With some dignity, there was not much he could do without a wand anyway. 

“I would recommend rolling your wrists slowly to get the blood flowing back properly to the area.” He breaks the silence.

“So this is what happened to you?” Abraxas says cooly. “We thought that you were dead, I searched for you for months....” He sounds so incredibly hurt. “and you have joined up with the enemy.” 

He follows the advice, moving his hands and flexing his fingers. He still looks like a mess, his long hair is falling out of its ponytail. And he is still covered in blood. It's not his, Tom has checked. Abraxas has become a real warrior in their time apart and he wonders if the other will try something stupid like trying to kill him. He doesn’t want to believe it, but he doesn’t really know the other anymore. It's been 5 years now and the only reason that he can tell it's him is because of those eyes and that hair. It's something that he wouldn’t forget.

“I didn’t join them fully at first. I needed a place to hide and Her-Morgana offered it.” 

Abraxas glares at him. “You were always scared to do what was asked of you.” 

Of course he was scared… he was a child told that he would have to fight and kill someone that had 15+ years on him of magical talent, that collected the Deathly Hallows, and had defeated Dumbledore and stolen his wand. That only now he knows is the Elder wand. She had conversations with Death and treated the entity as if he were a friend for the time being.

“Of course I was scared.” He doesn’t deny. “I spent my whole life lied to. I was being raised to be nothing but a tool and was treated by the light side as one. I was ordered to kill others, I was secluded, forced to fight over and over again for my life. And still, I never reached what others wanted of me no matter what I did I was not good enough."

"So you were not what some thought we needed, and decided that you would let that get into your head." Abraxas sneers, "We were at war, of course, people aren't going to be kind when they are sacred." 

"What would it have given the world if I was a killer?” Tom gets a bit angry. "I wanted to end things peacefully, compromises, and yet no one listened."

“Compromises with her never would have worked. If you killed her like you were supposed to, there would have been freedom from Morgana's regime that has killed hundreds of purebloods and their families.” Abraxas shifted his weight, his hands were in fists. “Walburga is dead, Mcgonagall too. There are many others that would still be alive if she wasn’t.”

He sounds broken over their deaths, they were close. Tom can't feel the same, because they never treated him like he was human, a human that had feelings. A boy that just wanted to be accepted, and safe for once. 

“They choose to oppose her, yes her methods are not the best, even I know that. But they are for good reason.” He takes a deep breath. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, I might not feel as much as others do, but that doesn’t mean that I could kill another. I regret the few lives that I had to take, not much but some. If I have to choose, I will choose my life over theirs. I don’t care if that is selfish. I owe them nothing. I hate death, so many people die before they can achieve what they want, find love, and live fully. So to save lives I became a Healer and I clean up anyone I can after battles.”

“So that is what eases your conscience. Your ability to take pity on the injured.” Abraxas hisses. “They choose to fight and they deserve to die, simple as that. There are plenty that have done nothing that she has stomped on. You are blind or lie to yourself if you don’t see it.” 

It's not that simple, but then nothing ever is. 

There is an ache forming in Tom’s chest. It constricts and he cleans up the rest of the medical supplies. 

“I don’t want your blood to stain this floor.” Tom finally says. “Consider for once all the things that Dumbledore has done for his ‘greater good’. What he has sacrificed, what he has done to me and if that doesn't bother you, those that were supposedly in his care. Think hard about it, for a day, is he worth dying for, is it worth more death to waste the chance a peace. Give me the answer when I come to change your bandages.” 

“Don’t bother.” Abraxas turns away from him. “I won’t ease your heart for this. I will die for the cause just like those that I love that the monster has killed have. My head will be held high even as she severs it off.” 

Tom hasn’t felt sick for a while, but he certainly feels it when he enters the farmhouse, knowing how things will play out.


	4. Chapter 4

The crows were calling. They caw loudly for they know, they always know when something or someone is going to die. They cried it out to the world. They shift and fluff up their feathers as Tom passes them, their black bead eyes reflecting the morning light. 

Tom hates crows, he really does. He rubs at his wrist there are thin lines that are scared around the lower part of it. The thin lines are a reminder of what sharp talons could do even of relatively medium-sized birds. He knows that the lasting damage is done by him breaking his wrist in that old church. The old one that was on the edge of the Riddle property where he was told to confess his sins…

He had many according to his Grandmother, and so it was the palace she loved to take him. He would try not to move and they would swoop at him, as they nested there, and they would claw at him. No matter how he begged to be let out. No matter how he tried to crawl, hide somewhere, or climb out of that hell, there had been no way out. 

No escape.

The crow caws again and he jumps. 

Remus is looking at him very concerned. “Are you alright Tom?”

“Yes.” He lies keeping his eyes on the werewolf so that he can make it to his small office in the shed, he has to stock up on potions. He needs disinfectant and bandages.

Lupin’s eyes tell him that he knows that he is lying but then Tom doesn’t expect him to really believe him. He is lying to himself too, for more than just being alright with the presence of crows. Tom doesn’t know why he is going and cleaning up Abraxas’s wounds. He won’t talk to him, and it has become something that he does habitually, almost robotically. 

He doesn’t know what will happen when Abraxas actually dies.

He doesn’t know how long he can bear to keep patching him up. 

He doesn’t know if he can stop though, not while he is still alive. 

Hermione stops him before he can go into the barn, she actually takes him by the arm and swings him around to face her. 

“There is no need.” 

He glances at the door, that he is inches from opening. “Is he dead?” It slips out and he doesn’t like how pathetic that he sounds. 

“No.” She starts.

“Then my job isn’t done yet.” Tom yanks at his arm, but she had clamped down on it. It would seem pathetic to anyone else to see a man that was only a few inches shorter than the woman in front of him, was powerless to pull out of her hold. But then this was Morgana and she was a lot stronger than one would expect even in the physical aspects.

“It ends, Riddle.” She isn’t going to let go until she has made her point. “I will not have you destroy your sanity over someone that never cared for you.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tom hisses feeling the tiredness, the anger, and frustration all being unleashed on the person that was partially responsible for it. 

“You know that I do.” She has pulled him closer to her so that she can grab onto his other wrist. She now has a matching set. “I am better at occumany that legilimens but I have broken through the shields that he had. I have seen everything, it was his task to befriend you. There might have been a few instances of care, but they were mostly to meet his own ends.” 

He feels the fight die out of him completely as he looks into her eyes because she is not lying. She has never lied to him, not really. Her truths are usually built-in for a loophole, but this is not one of those times that she would do that to him. No, she is being honest and something tells him that if he asked for the memories that she would produce them to show him that she was indeed serious. 

He feels the bag of supplies drop from his hand. He doesn’t know what he was expecting to hear but it was not that. It feels like his body has just stopped working. He is frozen and he feels empty and numb. He didn’t really think that he cared all that much about Abraxas…

But then it was like one of the few people that he thought cared about him at one point or another, didn’t really at all. It makes him feel so stupid, for sharing how he felt about things. It made him feel even worse for trusting Abraxas when he had no one else to turn to. Well no one but Victoria, but Abraxas was the human comfort. 

He was probably retelling everyone his insecurities. It should have made him feel angry, he should want to do something like hit the other, but instead, he feels nothing. It's like cold has crept into him and it reminds him that even the people that he has started to trust or trusted a little bit always betray him. They always toss him aside. 

Hermione lets go of his wrists, reaching up and touching his face rubbing at his cheeks that he realizes are slightly damp. 

How pathetic of him…

How utterly pathetic. 

She wipes at them with her thumb and holds his face gently. 

“I will not let those eyes become dull again. You will live.” She insists. “He is not worth your tears.” 

He feels her arms wrap around him, and she is hugging him, he can feel her cheek against his and the tightness of her hold. He feels himself reacting, reaching up and gripping at her back. He can feel the folds to her dress shirt and the blades to her shoulders. She is warm and he is cold, he is cold out here in the late December weather. 

He doesn’t know how long that she holds onto him, or how long he clings to her. This feels like the only real hug that he has ever had. And for some reason that makes him feel even smaller, more worthless and he feels more tears stream out of his eyes. 

~/*\~

She leads him back into the house, he is doll-like in a way. His eyes are shiny and such a deep brown, that they are memorizing in a way. She takes him to the living room and then chases everyone out of her home so she will not be interrupted. She is going to put that spark back, she doesn’t know how she will do it, but Morgana has always been smart. She has yet to find a problem that she can not truly solve, well opposed to bringing someone completely back from the dead. But Death is not entirely sure that it is possible. He can put a stopper to it, that is the point of the Deathly Hallows, the owner can not die. A person can be reincarnated, no issues with memories intact if needed, but there was no simple fix to bring someone back. 

In her string of few problems that did not have real solutions, she would not add Tom to it.

She fixes tea and sets the tray down in front of him and sits next to him. Usually, she doesn’t sit so close to him, but he had reacted positively to her touch outside so she hopes that this closeness will be comforting. 

To be honest, Morgana has no idea what she is doing. She used to know how to confront people, at the start of her campaigns she had been sympathetic, she had been able to move people. But as she had spiraled down her track deeper and deeper into the dark arts, it became quite hard to feel for certain individuals and she started pushing more of the fixing people up in the past few years onto Remus. 

“Please have some tea, Tom, I put a calming drought into it as I think that it will help you to relax and myself.”

He gives a slight nod taking one of the warm cups and placing it onto his lap but makes no move to drink from it.

“I should have broken the news to you in a better manner, however, I can not allow for you to continue to go into the shed if it is going to cause you great emotional and psychological harm. I promised to keep you safe, and I would say this qualifies.”

He nods.

“I was not optimistic that he would turn, but I hoped for your sake that he would. He will most likely be dead by morning if it is any comfort.” 

Tom has shifted so that he is looking more out the window than he is her. There is a large crow that has decided to rest itself against the sill. And she knows that the other can not have good memories of the things. She has seen the memory of a boy no older than four kickings, screaming, and begging to be let out of a decaying church. She has seen the scar that he has with the thin lines and she can see the way that he makes a move to rub at it. 

At least the haunted expression is something other than dull, dead eyes. She hates that look though. She can not place why her heart is twisting the way that it is. Perhaps it is because Harry had those eyes before he went home to the Dursleys one last time and never came back. 

It is still painful, fresh, and new. And she grabs at her skirt, rubbing fingers against the dark fabric. 

“Tom I care deeply for you.” She says the words out loud in a soft breath as she dares herself to touch his leg. She feels old, and young at the same time. She has enough experience with things not to be nervous, and yet she is. Their faces are close to each other. He looks like he wants to say something, his lips are even parted, but he drops his gaze to the teacup and then he just downs it. Downs it like it is a shot and shivers a little. She could have put sugar in she supposes, but she had not expected that. 

But then Tom has always surprised her in a way. 

“I have to hear it from him.” He says cooly “I need to know why.”

“I told you that it was his mission.” Morgana watches him stand, ready to do the same herself.

“I need closure.” Tom looks very calm now, very composed and almost cold the way that he smiles a tad. 

She is tempted to tell him to just stay the hell away from that cursed shed, but she lets out a deep breath. “If you think that is best.” 

She knows that perhaps letting him sort himself out is best, especially if he is not going to talk to her about it.

“I am not sure that it is, but if I hear it maybe it will make it clear to me.” He straightens his robes and leaves the house. 

Morgana sighs, taking a sip of her tea she is going to need a calming drought. 

~/*\~

It scares him the calm that is settling into his bones, it is not just the potion he knows. He has been able to turn off his emotions a few times before, when he was in the fight over a safe house for example, back when he was on the light side. It had been survival instincts taking over. He killed someone, and then another and after he had felt horrible, the deaths had not been on purpose, but it had happened.

Since then it has been similar instances though the sides have changed. Life to Tom has always been something to be saved, and he isn’t angry, he can’t be. He is just calm. 

He wants to hear him say it. He wants to hear the excuses and explanations.

He pushes past the guards that note that his healing bag is still on the ground. Abraxas is in the hay a mess of cuts and there is for sure severe nerve damage that has been done by the Cruciatus by the way that he is shivering. Or it is because it is cold, but then that isn’t really registering. Tom is warm. The blond hardly looks up from his place on the floor.

“I won’t bother to patch you up.” Tom takes a seat on the stool that is towards the back of the room. “I know that it is a waste of time. You will be dying so it really doesn’t matter. I suppose this is your last chance to confess things.”

“Confess?” The raspy voice responds for the first time, to him in days. If Tom was in a more caring mood, he would have handed the man some water. But he’s not, even if his healer instincts are bubbling under the surface to help, to be comforting. Tom knows that it really has always been a balancing act, that he has done to learn better how to imitate some of the emotions that he can not feel, that he wants to feel. 

He cannot pity the creature in front of him, to do that would be to make him worth something, and Tom is trying to forget that this person has ever meant anything to him. He is combing through their interactions and looking for all the signs that he has missed. 

“Yes, when I was young my grandmother used to speak of a place that people that have done horrible things would go, where they would burn forever. I used to dream that she would go there, be dragged down by the very demons she said possessed me. She claimed that atonement came from repentance and confession. I don’t claim to know much of the afterlife. Morgana can talk to death, not me. But if there are sins that you wish to get off your chest now might be your only time. I wouldn’t claim that it would save your soul or even that there is such a place, but you never know.” 

“I have little regrets.” 

“Not even pretending to be friends with vulnerable people?” Tom tilts his head. “It made you happy to relay all the things they told you in confidence?”

Abraxas hisses as he sits up enough to prop himself against the wall, he is understanding what this is about. “I had a duty to perform, and you did as well. I tried to make sure that you did what needed to be done.” 

“Was the compassion that you offered, just pity in disguise, or was everything a lie?” 

“Why does it matter?” 

“It matters.” Tom folds his hands neatly in his lap, much like Morgana would. “Because I want to understand why a person can do something like that to another person. I have always had muddled feelings, I have struggled to understand social cues and interactions. I want to know if everything that I used to try and believe in someone was faulty. If I am really not as good as I thought on picking out liars when other things than common sense enter my head.” 

Abraxas lets out a dry painful laugh. “If you are questioning your loyalty to that bitch now it's far too late.”

“I am not questioning loyalty to her. In fact, this has proven that even if something would hurt me, she will tell me. No, I want to know if what I feel is real, and if her cues are genuine. So which was it?”

“Oh Salazar, you're falling in love with her, aren't you and she is seducing you. That actually explains so much.”

“Seducing? It’s Tom's turn to laugh. “If she is trying to do that, she is doing a fairly poor job of it. If anything I think I have been changing her for the better and as for love. I have never felt it. I don’t think it exists, truly. Humans are such selfish creatures there can not be something as pure as love in the world. The more I interact with people like you the more I believe that.” 

“There is love in the world. Why would we do half the things that we do if not for the people that we love? Everything I did was to protect those that I loved and they still died.” Abraxas shook his head. “You are really fucked up aren't you Tom.”

“I am convinced that people have invented the idea of love.” Tom ignores him. “They convince themselves that they do not want to be alone, and each relationship a human forms in attachment is an attempt to fill in the emptiness in one way or another. A person could make you feel needed for example and you are more likely to spend your time with them, someone could seem to want to take care of you because by doing so you will take care of them. You say you did all of it for love so prove it.” 

“I can’t explain love to you, Tom, if you don’t believe in it, it's just something that one feels and I pity you truly if you can’t feel it. Even Morgana has felt it, for that Harry boy. She started all of this in the name of him. Dumbledore is right she can’t get over it and she will kill all the purebloods and perceived oppressors that she sees in her way to even the playing field. She has in her blindness killed hundreds and split many more families; they all want her blood. And unless you have lost someone that you loved, unless you have loved then you can’t be expected to understand that. It's possible that you were meant to fail because you can’t love.”

How could one feel something that they have never felt… 

He can not perhaps understand because he has never been loved then. 

“I see, pity is what drove you and vengeance. Something that mattered was taken from you, and it didn’t matter to you that it hurt me. Your end goal was greater. I think that is the problem then with the supposed light side of this. The greater good is not caring or real love. It is an illusion to justify destroying another.” 

He stands, “I think you should still clear your conscience, and prepare yourself for the end. I don’t think that Morgana will do it cleanly.” 

~/*\~

Tom is a bit colder when Abraxas is dead, he watches the final breath leave his fake friend and Morgana can feel the shift in him trying to hold onto the light and find the care that he has been looking for. It hurts her the way that he pours his being into the work and task ahead. Morgana tries to comfort him, bring back some sake of the person she knows and he slowly starts to mend. But he is a mess. Tom was a mess of insecurities and fears before she met him, and he has always had troubles with trusting and this has caused it to be even worse. 

She eventually does have an idea that will prove that she cares for him and that he can trust others again.

“I think I understand at long last why things have been so bad.” She sits him down next to her. “You loved and lost.” 

He blinks at her. 

Love is horrible, isn’t it? It makes you feel so vulnerable. It opens your chest and your heart and makes room for someone to get inside, and once they are inside they can really mess you up. I am not saying that you loved him romantically, but I think that you did really care for him. And he used that path he carved to hurt you. I have lost many people that I loved. Perhaps not more than platonically, but it feels similar I am sure. It makes you doubt everything how could someone you cared for so greatly hurt you so very much.”

She reaches out daringly to hold onto his hand, and he lets her have it and she threads her fingers into his. 

“People that were supposed to love you have failed you, Tom, from your immediate family to your guardian, and even someone you counted as friends. But I know that I care deeply for you and I will not fail you.” 

She places in his hand a ring, a very important one. He takes and holds it very confused. 

“This is the relic that was passed down in your family for many generations. It is not any stone it is the Resurrection stone. I would like for you to have it, return it to you so you, know that you are cared for, trusted, and loved. I know not how, when, or for exactly the reason, but I am willing to be vulnerable to prove that to you. I recommend that you use it to call back someone that loved you dearly, the one that you keep close to your heart. Then perhaps you can understand that you are worth it.” 

She touches the locket that rests on his breast. And she can feel the way that his magic has picked up around him. She kisses him on those parted lips gently, and pulls away, making her way towards her office to give him space and also to stop herself from doing something that she will regret and push him away. She had not meant to kiss him, but she had.

~/*\~

He knows what it is that he holds and he can hardly believe it. She has given him one of the Deathly Hallows. She has given him the key to her immortality, he knows that as long as no one else collects all 3 she will remain the mistress of death. But this is trusting, this is vulnerability, and he has always wanted to meet his mother. 

He turns the stone once thinking of her, then turns it a second time afraid of what he might see and what he might come to learn. What if she had not loved him like Hermione thinks, but he turns it the last time and a woman appears to him.

She is not as pretty as he had always envisioned her. She though is tall and she has long black hair that is like his, her eyes are silver, and she is pale. There is nothing that would make her ever stand out in a crowd but she is his mother. She is the one that gave him the gift of life, and by doing so she had taken herself out of it.

“Mother.” He can hardly help himself. 

“My little Tom.” She moves closer to him, he can not feel her, she is a ghost yet she stands near him and runs a hand over his head. “I have missed you so. I have been watching you grow, change, and I am proud of you.”

“You don’t regret having Married father or...” He leaves having me unsaid. 

“I loved your father, though I know that he was not faithful to me nor truly loved me. He wanted Magic, of that I am certain and I delusioned myself to thinking that he could come to care for me as well as the power that I could offer him. But it was not to be even with love potions that I tried to use to get him to perhaps feel what I felt, just for a minute or two, understand that I was devoted to him. Yes, there were many things that went wrong and the reason he married me was because he thought he had gotten me pregnant. He eventually did. No, it was not a healthy relationship in any sort of the word. But No I can not regret it. For it gave me the greatest thing that I ever could have been given.”

Her form shimmered, she continued to try to touch him and he in a way could almost feel it. “I loved you from the monument that I held you in my arms. Such a beautiful thing brought into the world by someone that was as unfortunate as me. I am sure that you are the one good thing that I have ever helped to create. The one thing that matters. I am sorry that I was unable to stay with you. I was ill and I was always a very sickly woman.” 

“I am glad to meet you now.” He traces the stone of the ring in his hand with his fingers. 

She smiles sadly. “It is good to be able to talk with you past the veil of death, even if I cannot stay long.” 

“What is the afterlife like?” Tom asks softly.

“It is peaceful.” She responds, “but not a place for you any time soon.” 

“I am not planning on dying.” He actually feels a small smile forming on his face. 

“I am glad to hear it.” She smiles very kindly at him. “But when the time does come, know that you will not be alone.” 

~/*\~

Tom talks for her for a long time, he learns more about her life. He learns that perhaps he is not cursed and he is sorry that she can not stay long in the land of the living. But he does understand now a bit what others must feel when they lose someone. How it hurts to know that they can not be with you. Yes, he had missed her, but he had not known her before. To be separated by death and never have this chance to speak, to receive closure and now he can understand how others would feel about this war. And for the first time, he can really start to empathize with those like Abraxas and the followers of the light. He can understand. All because now he has felt love.

Life was designed to break a person, and not a soul could protect another person from all the hurts that there were. He had once believed that if he was able to just isolate himself that he would be safe. He had been alone and tried to live that way, his heart protected from hurt, and all that solitude had brought him was to make him yearn to understand what others felt. But love and to feel was not a process that one could do without risking that hurt, inviting it in. 

The goal of life perhaps was to love others, and perhaps there were selfish reasons to love, but it was the real reason to be placed on earth. The only things to give it true meaning. 

So he knocks on that study door he invites love into his heart in the form of a woman that has shown him the most amount of care that he has ever felt and he takes that leap of faith. He allows himself to be completely vulnerable. 

~/*\~

They are not two sides of the same coin, they are not true light and dark. There is no such thing. They are just gray, gray like the satin sheets below them. Gray like the darkening sky that stretches forever along the horizon, that the sun pokes through. So is there light to the darkness that presents itself in the woman's eyes, hair, and smile. So is their light in the man's eyes that shows he is alive, and the light tone to his skin. He shows that he can be that light to someone else. Their sins and shadows stretch around them, in the dim room lit by candles. Dark is the man's world outlook, dark is his hope in others. But light is the woman's belief that the world can change, that equality and freedom can be reached. 

They are not foils or magnets, there is nothing that pushes or pulls them together. Not really. Just as there is no real way to tell when their feels have crossed to where they have been. It is a mess or roots, that have woven around each other. At this moment they are not Voldemort the head healer, or Morgana the great Mistress of Death and the dark.

They are Tom Riddle and Hermione Granger. 

They are just humans, two people that want to be understood and be loved. Two people that have been hurt by life, hurt by others. Two people set to finish a war that has been started and so it must end. They are uncertain, unpracticed, lonely, and yearning souls. They meet somewhere in the middle flesh combining, gentle touches, crass words. They hold each other and make promises in whispered hushed voices, and hitched murmurs. 

They are equaled, man and woman. 

Are the balance to each other.

Lovers striving for a better world for themselves and each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has had a lot more positivity and traffic than I expected, I am grateful for that.


	5. Epilogue

The war is at an end. Morgana has claimed all the countries that makeup Europe. She has laid waste to those that have stood in her way and from the ashes of the governments she has taken over she has foraged unity. Equal rights had been born through blood and many deaths. She was sure that she still would be fighting one very persistent group of Order members, but Morgana wondered just how many more people could really believe Dumbledore’s lies or the other families, not after all the work had been completed. There was no need for any more fighting. 

She knows there are still those that wish death upon her as she has done great evils in the name of betterment. She has almost sold her very soul for power, and she had come close a few times to thinking about splitting it before she had gathered her Hollows. 

She has regrets, too many to name, and she has lost many. Some closer than others, and she has finally enacted her own version of justice and revenge. 

But does the wolf apologize, for being a wolf? No, they do what they have to, to survive, and for the survival of their pack. And so has Morgana. She has brought in blood, death, carnage, all of it to an end, and secured a world that would be best suited for those that mattered to her. The one that she loves will be safe. He had helped her to end the war. Her own legislation was in place, her own people that would uphold the goals that had been fought for. 

And if they don’t she will take care of it in turn, they can not do much to her through the contracts that she has placed on them, nor when she holds the power to command death himself. 

This night had been the last push, the last battle, Dumbledore’s little last resistance had fallen, all she had to do was finish the old man off. He right now is in custody and she wants to make a show of his trail. She hopes that by making it a spectacle that it will crush the last bit of resistance and buy her the true peace that she seeks. 

He has much to answer for and she intends to show him for all to see the real monster that he is, she knows that a kiss would be far too easy for him, even if the Dementors that she has befriended would be in favor of it. They would rejoice at the chance to devour such a soul. Death wouldn’t be appreciative of that fate. He has brought up the way in which the afterlife works and Morgana is very content with him having a soul in which to play around with and torment. 

She was exhausted when she returned to the farmhouse, bloody, and bruised. But still alive. Death had seen to that. He wouldn’t let his Mistress die unless she willed it to happen. He did his job and he did it well. 

Tom had waited up for her, he was covered in blood himself as he was their main healer in the battle.His robes were disheveled and he no doubt had been helping to save Ronald, who had helped her to get her clean shot at Dumbledore. Her poor friend had been torn apart, but she knew that he would pull through. He was strong and 

“You look horrible Hermione.” He stands to greet her. 

She smiles wearily. “Truthful as ever.” 

She embraces him and lets him kiss her. 

**As lovely as this is you are still bleeding quite a bit My Mistress.**

They both turn towards the voice, and while Tom can not see death, but Morgana can. She can see the figure wrapped up in shadows. He is amused, and she hates that smug look set on his face. She might be crazy that she can read that skull now. He has become her friend, even if he is really quite the pain. 

Morgana feels like the moment has been ruined, as Tom starts taking her to the basement that he has converted into his potions lab. He is fretting over her, which is sweet as it shows how much he cares. 

He takes care to dress her wounds. His hands are strong, firm, yet cautious in the way that he cleans up the flesh and heals it. He is meticulous, and she knows better to interrupt him. She instead studies the rings on his hands. He has claimed his titles and what is left of the fortunes in his name, but that is not the ring that she looks at. She looks at the one that is a single gold band that catches the light. 

It is the final contract that they have made, the only one that matters. It is their vows and their promises to one another. He is hers and she is his. Others may not know it yet, but they will soon enough. It had been a secret that she had asked him to join not only their bodies but souls. 

She is hopeful that they can live out in the open now, that things are to settle down. She wonders if there could be room for another life in their lives. She would love to make something greater than her empire with him. Something that she has not had in years, so many that she hardly remembers them. She can not picture their faces. She would like a family. 

The stitch pulls the skin and she hisses, brought completely out of her thoughts. 

“Sorry.” He says automatically and she knows that he means it, perhaps not with his other patience but she knows that he certainly feels it for her. 

“It's alright.” She grimaces as the magical stitches are finished. The new scars messing with the old. She doesn't mind them. Tom of course does. He is bothered about the pain that she must have been in when she received them. He does not doubt her beauty; he has told her many times how he feels about her. He just wishes that she did not have to go through it. And she will admit that she wouldn’t have near as many as she had if she had picked him up earlier.

While she has Tom she knew that she wouldn’t get many more. She shouldn't get too many more anyway with the war over and the fact that she will probably not get into too many more duals. 

Tom has scars too, old ones from his many battles for survival, and then a few from the few times that he has helped to save her on the battlefield. He is still not a dueler, but he is more than capable of taking care of himself. She traces the ones that are on his hands, they are rough from all the work that he does. 

“You need to be more careful.” He helps her to sit up and she smiles a little at him.

“You know that I like to live and love dangerously.” She traces her fingers up his arm. “I will not have to be on the front lines anymore, so things should be safer.”

“No, and you can’t die, I understand that.” Tom sighs, “I know that you like to think that you're near indestructible but you aren't, and I have cause to worry.”

She kisses him softly on the cheek. “Don’t worry about me too much Tom.”

He holds her close and she wraps her arms around him feeling his bones and all that he is. She hates being away from him for a long time. These little skirmishes have kept them apart for a long time. He rests his head on hers. She can feel his breaths in her hair. They are both tired, she can feel it in the way that he seems to melt into her. She can hold him up even on her tired feet.

“We should bathe.” She sighs into his neck. She doesn’t want to let go though, because she likes the soft thrum of his heart and the buzzing of his magic. She even likes the rhythmic breathing that she can hear in this quiet moment. 

“It probably would be best not to go to bed with blood all over us.” He agrees with her. 

He helps her out of her layers and she fills the tub. She sets herself behind him so that she can lean against the porcelain. He helps to clean her sides which are still a little tender and as a reward, she helps with his hair. He has been growing it out and it's near longer than hers. He pulls it off well when he ties it up. It reminds her of those old Japanese movies that she would watch as a little girl before her parents died. He is like one of those pale warriors that comes to save the lead woman, though he would do it through spells, not strange gravity-defying kicks. 

She smiles to herself as she lathers soap in his hair and massages it. He leans into her touch and she appreciates the way that he just sighs and closes his eyes. She rinses it carefully, repeating the process that all the blood droplets that have hardened his hair is gone. There is not a trace of the hard past few days that he has had.

She knows that he has pushed past exhaustion in his rush to save those that were close to them, just as she has pushed past her limits battling the wizard that had defeated in his prime a wizard that was in her own opinion a lot more powerful than she was.

He helps her dry her hair and they head to bed. She has made her room, back into the real master bedroom that it is supposed to be. She puts on underwear and a shirt not bothering with anything else and Tom follows a similar method of bed ware.

She rests against him and he wraps her up in his arms. They take turns doing things like this because sometimes she prefers to hold him close to her chest so that she can play with his longer hair. She is too tired though to do much else than lay there. She feels safe which is such a rare occurrence for her. Her mind is always thinking a hundred thoughts a second, they push themselves to the front of her brain with worries and insecurities, plans that need to be made. 

But when Tom kisses softly her neck she forgets to think. Her brain shuts down and she is able to shift herself as close as she can to him and sleep. 

**~/*\~**

There is a small farmhouse that is in the middle of the English countryside. It is decorated with many hanging plants that hang from hooks on the porch, the way there is a small gate that goes around the front of it, is quaint and inviting. There are a few barns that outline endless fields of golden grass that sways in the breeze. 

There are not many people that frequent it anymore, there are a few notable people though one of them is a werewolf that can sometimes be seen chasing after a black dog that he sometimes tackles and hunts with. The howls in the night are far from haunting to the family that lives there. There is also the occasional redhead that limps from the damage of a great battle and many still speak of his bravery. 

Tom keeps up with his medical practices, he has published many papers, however, he takes a lot more free time, then someone that is in his field normally does, he does this so that he can spend all the time he can with his family. He cares little for anyone that thinks less of him for it. He is not afraid to tell that to their faces. Voldemort can chase off death himself if it suits him there is little that a human can do to intimidate him. Hermione runs several nations, she is very busy but not busy enough not to take a time turner and put herself at work and in the home. She is proud of the life that she leads and wants for nothing. 

But the most namable resident there is a girl that runs the yard, she has black hair like her father that is long and slick and she has the burning brown eyes of her mother. She can be seen darting in and out of the tall grasses, scarring of the crows that land there with her loud cries of excitement. Her father will chase after her, laughing and pretending to grab at her. On some days her mother will join in the games, however, she never plays fair. She longs to go to school and meet new people, and her mother promises to give her the cloak that she wears when she leaves. The one that makes her disappear. It is an added protection that the little girl doesn’t think that she needs. She is brave, resourceful, and knows something about just about anything. She can read better than most Hogwarts graduates, and her magic is raw and hard to control. But she wants nothing more than to follow in her father's footsteps.

Harriet Merope Riddle is 5 years old and she has never had to worry about anything in the world. She has two parents that love her more than life itself and a grandfather that is a skeleton that will deny how much he likes her while pushing her on the tire swing or sneaking her fine treats from the many places that he visits. 

The farmhouse is peaceful today, and Harriet takes her father by the hand into the field so that they can look for worms and splash in the muddy puddles. She lets go so that she can poke at a few of the worms that are large and spindly. Her mother trails behind them only to whisk her wand and make the nearest puddle get her father. He gets her back by jumping into the one next to her and splashing mud up onto her fine-looking blue coat. 

Harriet laughs, at her mum’s baffled expression that turns to a large smile. 

“Traitor.” Her mother laughs back making a little swipe at her.

“Run!” Harriet squeals and runs off taking Father’s hand so that he can help block the few mud balls that are being thrown at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap :D

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a dream about Hermione being a Dark Mistress of Evil and Tom was the chosen one, and was just like... YES, I am going to write the hell out of that shit. And of course, this was born rather than me working on things that I really should be working on. 
> 
> Oh If you like this please let me know! I could be persuaded to continue it. 
> 
> Comments, Questions, Kudos, and Feedback are always welcome and approached.


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